In August 1967, Lyndon Johnson announced that he was sending 45,000 more troops to Vietnam. Black power advocate Stokely Carmichael called for violent revolution in the streets. Beatles manager Brian Epstein died from an overdose of sleeping pills. But around water coolers, the hot topic was what Billie Joe McAllister and his girlfriend threw off the Tallahatchie Bridge.

The mystery created by Bobbie Gentry in her debut single “Ode To Billie Joe” cast a spell over the entire country. Set to a backing of spare acoustic guitar chords and atmospheric strings, Gentry’s sensual, Southern-fried voice relates the story of two Mississippi teenage lovers who share a dark secret that eventually leads to the boy’s suicide. And over 40 years later, despite cinematic details in the song’s lyric, we still don’t know exactly what happened up there on Choctaw Ridge.

Bobbie Gentry was born Roberta Lee Streeter on July 27, 1944 in Chickasaw County, Mississippi. In the few interviews that she gave, Gentry touched briefly on her rural upbringing, saying, “We didn’t have electricity, and I didn’t have many playthings.”

She did have music though. From the gospel sounds of the local Baptist church to old folk songs, Bobbie was fascinated. “My grandmother noticed how much I liked music, so she traded one of her milk cows for a neighbor’s piano,” Gentry said. Taking to the instrument immediately, she wrote her first song at age 7, a ditty called “My Dog Sergeant is a Good Dog.” After her parents divorced, 13-year-old Bobbie moved to Palm Springs, Calif. with her mother, who quickly remarried. With the family’s improved fortunes, Bobbie taught herself guitar, banjo, bass and vibes. As a teenager, she started playing gigs at a local country club, taking her stage name from Ruby Gentry, a movie about a poor, rurual seductress.

After graduating high school, Bobbie, by then a raven-haired beauty, went to Vegas, where she worked in a Folies Bergere–style review, dancing and singing. In the mid-’60s, she moved to Los Angeles to attend UCLA, finally landing at the Conservatory of Music, where she studied composition and arranging. A demo tape she made ended up on the desk of Capitol Records A&R man Kelly Gordon.

“Ode” was recorded on July 10, 1967 at Studio C in the Capitol tower. Accompanying herself on guitar, Bobbie nailed a keeper take in 40 minutes. Arranger Jimmie Haskell told MOJO, “I asked Kelly, ‘What do you want me to do?’ He said, ‘Just put some strings on it so we won’t be embarrassed. No one will ever hear it anyway.’ The song sounded to me like a movie—those wonderful lyrics. I had a small group of strings—two cellos and four violins to fit her guitar-playing. I was branching out in my own head for the first time, creating something that I liked because we thought no one was ever gonna hear it.”

The finished version of “Ode” was over seven minutes long. Capitol edited it down to a more manageable four minutes and stuck it on the flip side of “Mississippi Delta.” But those were the days when DJs still had minds of their own, and as in the stories of so many classic hits, the B-side became the A-side.

It sounded like nothing else on the radio, Gentry’s husky voice inviting listeners into a world that was as dark and exotic as a Flannery O’Connor story. Not long after the song’s debut, the water cooler talk started.

As Gentry told Fred Bronson, “The song is sort of a study in unconscious cruelty. But everybody seems more concerned with what was thrown off the bridge than they are with the thoughtlessness of the people expressed in the song. What was thrown off the bridge really isn’t that important.

“Everybody has a different guess about what was thrown off the bridge—flowers, a ring, even a baby. Anyone who hears the song can think what they want, but the real message of the song, if there must be a message, revolves around the nonchalant way the family talks about the suicide. They sit there eating their peas and apple pie and talking, without even realizing that Billie Joe’s girlfriend is sitting at the table, a member of the family.”

In its first week of release, “Ode” sold 750,000 copies, knocking “All You Need Is Love” out of the top spot on the Billboard chart. It stayed there for four weeks. The song won Gentry three Grammy Awards, including Best New Artist (she was the first Country artist to ever win in this category).

The enigma of her best-known song is nothing compared to that of Bobbie Gentry herself. In the early ’70s, she was riding high—headlining in Vegas, duetting with Glen Campbell on several hits, hosting her own TV series. Then around 1975, after contributing music to a movie based on “Ode,” she simply checked out. She has not been heard from in over 35 years. All requests for interviews, recordings and performances have been denied. She is said to be living in the Los Angeles area.

Subscribe

Comments (144)

It should have been a gun. He wanted to kill himself, because he thought he was gay because he had been molested as a kid. And had sex with adult men as he got older. He wanted to be straight, but with all the baggage he couldn’t. She talked him out of killing himself, they throw the gun in the water, later that night he changed his mind and killed him self. That is the Hollywood version. To me when I saw him getting in the car with that old guy, and the look on his face, that is what I though of. And it could have been nothing more than throwing flowers off the bridge.

I met Bobbi in 1969 at the airport in Sheveport La while i was traveling to Viet Nam. I had met her priviously as I was a DJ that intervied her. We sat and talked for a while and i brought up my “Emmet Till theory. While she did not cofirm that theory, she did smile and say that i must be a very learned student of history. To this day i still belive that the murder of Emmet Till was the underlying basis for her song.
Bobbi still live near Los Angeles Ca and remains in her secluded and own structured world as she wishes

You all have all kinds of theories. The locals told you she was retiring about a 20 foot bridge that was 1-1/2 hours away. It collapsed. And the theory about an interracial couple! Please! He would have been lynched. In 2017 he could have been shot. So I don’t buy that. She was writing an ode that rhymed. Accept the fact that it’s fiction.

I read the book, and it makes a lot more sense than what others have written. The girl in the song was much too old to be playing with dolls, and she knew it. Billy Joe and she walked to the bridge and he gave her the courage to throw the doll into the water. Later he attended a barn dance. Some drunken men pulled him behind the barn and raped him. He hated what they did, but because he was so innocent, he thought he would become gay. He and the girl loved each other. That’s why he jumped off the brige. The book had some funny parts, which surprised me.

One of the posts above made the claim that Ode was never intended as a B side but I beg to differ. According to everyone who worked on the record, Mississippi Delta (which is a swamp rocker as different as day and night from Ode to Billie Joe) was truly the intended A side, but all it took was one deejay who knew a better song when he heard one to start playing Ode; it spread from there to become the monster hit we know and love. The movie plot had nothing whatsover to do with what Bobbie Gentry had in mind that the couple threw off the bridge; she claims whatever they threw wasn’t the point of the song anyway. And yes, the brother referenced,the one who married Becky Thompson,is the narrator’s brother and not the “nice, young preacher” Brother Taylor the narrator’s mother seems interested in setting her daughter up with -the same one who sees the narrator and BJ throwing something off the bridge. Last i heard, Gentry relocated back closer to her roots and lives in a gated community (I loathe that description)in Shelby County Tennessee, near Memphis, and a few hours drive from the area she grew up in.

This song was in my dreams last night, but haven’t heard it in years, so I looked it up and found this thread. My guess comes from Bobby Gentry’s assertion that the song was about the indifference of the people. It was just something to talk about, like the plowing or a visit from the preacher. Some people are very sensitive to things, very gentle types and care deeply about others where most have more of a surface caring. They don’t always fit in, therefore and aren’t understood. The father saying he didn’t have a lick of sense and dismissing his suicide as one more silly thing he did rather than a tragedy says a lot. And the family were church goers and still didn’t see the pain he had and care says a lot too. There was an actor named Pete Duel who was on a hit T.V. show Alias Smith and Jones, who committed suicide during it’s run. He was very close to Judy Carne from Laugh In and she wrote about him in her book. He cared so deeply about others, even people he never met that he heard about in the news that he couldn’t help that it depressed him. He did all he could but it wasn’t enough. The pain of others overwhelmed him and he took his life. She received permission to have him buried near their favorite place to meet as it was the only place where he seemed to get a little peace. Robin Williams was known to feel as if all he did to help others who were hurting wasn’t enough and to become very depressed about it. So it could be the contrast of the deep caring with the seeming callousness. Can’t imagine what they threw off the bridge.

In the movie, BillyJo visited a brothel.. with his friend.. and he was ashamed he had been with a man.. he wanted to love her but his thoughts about what he had done and his guilt ruined it for them as a couple.. watch the movie.. he even admits it to her.. Billy Jo dropped her doll by accident it was later seen in the movie when they drug his limp body out of the river. I had to watch it a few times!! Still a good movie

Great song … evocative lyrics.
Tho one thing seems to have been overlooked by every analysis I’ve read about it – which ‘brother’ moved to Tupelo.. ?.. her brother, or the preacher Brother?
Also, would be unlikely fir church-goers to throw a baby off the bridge – wouldn’t they feel inclined to bury it?

Met Bobbie Gentry in 82 or 83 while working at Northridge Fashion Center, Nortridge, CA…
Didn’t realize who she was until she handed me her credit card… said “you’re not…” and she replied “it is I!” Very sing song. We had a nice chat. She was buying discounted and damaged sweaters…maybe for a shelter or something.

I feel you are right about the movie distorting the essence of this narrative poem set to accoustic tinkering. I would imagine the doll to be symbolic for childhood inmocence. With the act of a doll thrown off the bridge, enter thoughts about sexual intercourse and babies. I can’t be 100percent sure, because I never met Bobby Gentry, but from what I hear read and see, this is not any instance of lamenting over a dead fetus or still born baby. The immediate tragedy surrounds the suicide victim, and suicide is in 99percent of cases preceeded by weeks or months of depression. The arguing was most likely about one wishing to end his life and the other trying to dissuade him.
The indifference to death by the overworked and poverty stricken, is another tragedy. The poem is a social statement about the subdued peasant. Very sad.

It’s far from impossible that the original version is still in a closet somewhere, containing the explanation that everybody wants. But it was quickly realized that the mystery makes a better commercial property. The original version was never leaked.

Nobody knows what happened TRUTHFULLY but B.G.whether the song is Fact or Fiction. Just a different perspective on it. Did anyone ever think that maybe Billy Jo is NOT DEAD? Just because he jumped doesnt mean he Died??

I am from Tallahatchie county. That is just a song she made up. She is from Choctaw county. Choctaw Rigde is about 83 miles from the Tallahatchie Bridge. She was just making rhymes to make the song. She move from Mississippi to California in 1957 when she was 13. It is just a song….‼️

And for those who requested the Lyrics:
It was the third of June, another sleepy, dusty Delta day
I was out choppin’ cotton and my brother was balin’ hay
And at dinner time we stopped and we walked back to the house to eat
And mama hollered at the back door “y’all remember to wipe your feet”
And then she said she got some news this mornin’ from Choctaw Ridge
Today Billie Joe MacAllister jumped off the Tallahatchie Bridge

Papa said to mama as he passed around the blackeyed peas
“Well, Billie Joe never had a lick of sense, pass the biscuits, please”
“There’s five more acres in the lower forty I’ve got to plow”
Mama said it was shame about Billie Joe, anyhow
Seems like nothin’ ever comes to no good up on Choctaw Ridge
And now Billie Joe MacAllister jumped off the Tallahatchie Bridge

And brother said he recollected when he and Tom and Billie Joe
Put a frog down my back at the Carroll County picture show
And wasn’t I talkin’ to him after church last Sunday night?
“I’ll have another piece of apple pie, you know it just don’t seem right”
“I saw him at the sawmill yesterday on Choctaw Ridge”
“And now you tell me Billie Joe’s jumped off the Tallahatchie Bridge”

Mama said to me “Child, what’s happened to your appetite?”
“I’ve been cookin’ all morning and you haven’t touched a single bite”
“That nice young preacher, Brother Taylor, dropped by today”
“Said he’d be pleased to have dinner on Sunday, oh, by the way”
“He said he saw a girl that looked a lot like you up on Choctaw Ridge”
“And she and Billie Joe was throwing somethin’ off the Tallahatchie Bridge”

A year has come ‘n’ gone since we heard the news ’bout Billie Joe
Brother married Becky Thompson, they bought a store in Tupelo
There was a virus going ’round, papa caught it and he died last Spring
And now mama doesn’t seem to wanna do much of anything
And me, I spend a lot of time pickin’ flowers up on Choctaw Ridge

Quote from Wikipedia: (maybe this will help)
In 1967 Gentry produced her first single, the country rock “Mississippi Delta”. However, it was the flipside, “Ode to Billie Joe”, with its sparse sound and controversial lyrics, that started to receive airplay in the U.S. Capitol’s shortened version added to the song’s mystery. Questions arose among the listeners: what did Billie Joe and his girlfriend throw off the Tallahatchie Bridge, and why did Billie Joe commit suicide? Gentry herself has commented on the song, saying that its real theme was indifference:[9]

“Those questions are of secondary importance in my mind. The story of Billie Joe has two more interesting underlying themes. First, the illustration of a group of people’s reactions to the life and death of Billie Joe, and its subsequent effect on their lives, is made. Second, the obvious gap between the girl and her mother is shown, when both women experience a common loss (first, Billie Joe and, later, Papa), and yet Mama and the girl are unable to recognize their mutual loss or share their grief.”

ftnt9: “Biography”. Ode to Bobbie Gentry. Archived from the original on 2009-10-26.

I read a book about it…fiction of course. The secret was actually that Billy Joe’s boss (a man) had raised him and he could live with it. She knew the secret and pretended to be pregnant and went away to make people think he’d jumped because of that to save his “reputation”. Back then, he would have never been accepted even though he was forced.

Sheresa is EXACTLY correct ! You should watch the movie you’ll see and thoroughly enjoy this classic movie. It is revealed in the last two scenes that Billy Joe is gay. Billy Joe didn’t tell Bobbie Lee who the man was he slept when they planned it to meet up to make love for the first time, and they did not he couldn’t . He painfully admits is he gay she sees him struggling with it but mentions you were drunk as if wouldn’t happen again , but he says no, admitting to being gay He says I want to make you proud and in the end being gay he did …still! Billie Joe had loved her for a long time and knew they could never be. The last scene as she is walking across the bridge she runs into a man (his boss) who is on his way over to see her father to tell all. The man asks why are you doing this? You’re not pregnant! She says why you’re only one in town that says this… and you’re right. Much is revealed by him that she picks up on that he’s the man he slept with, Bobbie Lee talked him out of going to see her father. He asks why are you doing this ? You’re so young it will be hard and you don’t have to leave. Why ? What for ? Bobbie Lee says they’re already talking based on what her brother tells her after the funeral about the town talking that she is with child. She says nothingat all and decided to go with it being his name by this point is becoming a legend. it to protect him his memory cause of how the town wouldn’t ever accept being gay plus the fact his name was becoming a legend He agrees and offers her a ride to the bus stop.
The movie was very well done, and let’s face it the year was 1976, but I can honestly say I still appreciate the talent and the great performances of Glynnis O’Connor and Robbie Benson at 56 years old.
Very true many wondered about the lyrics, it was quite the conversation piece, and not many movies are made based on a songs lyrics.

She did NOT write the song, she stole the song from the musician she was living with in L A , at the time & everyone in town knew it ! Ive been in the bussiness for over 50 yrs & was recording at Capitol in the late 60’s & working every country bar in so Cal invluding the Palimino Club, sorry to say other than Fancy” it was her only big hit, Fancy did OK but Billy Joe keept her working for over 2 decades !

In ’67/’68 I was under contract to Capitol records. My producer was Kelly Gordon. Bobby Gentry would show up to my recording sessions. Kelly Gordon told me the story that she showed up to his office with guitar in hand and played the song for him. He said they recorded the song ,later added strings. Kelly was in love with her. I don’t know if it was mutual…She married Harrah( night club owner)Great song.

I believe they were young lovers, Romeo and Juliette come to mind who had a pact to jump off the bridge together, so that their love would be eternal. They were throwing random things off the bridge to test the waters before they both would jump. She backed out of the suicide pact but Billy Joe returned and followed through with the suicide.

The song could not possibly have been recorded on July 10, 1967, as the song was already on regional charts prior to that date…. which also proves that it could not have been a B side, because it was the side that charted regionally first, and weeks ahead of the flip, which had just conveniently been recorded earlier. There is no 7 minute version of the song, if there ever was it is gone now. They searched the vaults in the 1990’s looking for it and found nothing. My guess is stories like this one keep popping up to perpetuate the myth. By now, the story has grown wild because Bobbie refuses to talk about it.

Growing up in Mississippi and knowing this song for as long as I can remember. I always thought it was about an interracial couple. They were in a relationship and her daddy made him jump off the bridge. I’m not sure if I just thought this based off the lyrics or I was told this at some point. Either way it’s a song I grew up with and it brings back wonderful memories of sultry southern nights sitting around on the porch in Mississippi

Most likely not interracial–they would have not attended the same church, and if Billy Joe was black he would have been relegated to the balcony at the “picture show” and the white kids seated below. That’s just how it was in ’50s-’60’s Mississippi.

That makes the most sense I’ve read yet. I also thought h might have asked her to marry him & sh said no. They could b throwing the flowers he brought or a ring. Rem bet papa said billy joe never had a luck of sens. But I think the draft ca d makes the most sense

So many thoughts and theories going on but it’s really not that complicated. Anybody that grew up in the rural South in the 30’s and 40’s had it rough–very rural existence . No electricity, no running water, no indoor plumbing. Farming, picking cotton, baling hay, planting crops, etc were the ONLY way to feed the family. Life was a matter of fact rather than speculating and “getting in touch with yourself”–no time for that. There were crops to harvest and mouths to feed…It’s that simple. You simply put one foot in front of the other and kept trudging forward. No fancy or trendy theory

Wasn’t just the deep South. It was practically all of rural America. My mother’s family in northern Missouri got their first electricity in 1951. They never had “running” water. They had tanks of water shipped in on truck. But never an indoor toilet. I remember getting up in the middle of the night to go to the outhouse. Had to get dressed first in my snowsuit and then try to use the thing in 15 degree weather. It was the 50s. No parent woke up then just to help you go to the outhouse. We weren’t allowed to pee anywhere but in the outhouse. Guess that’s why I’ve always been independent.

I don’t know what they threw off the bridge. But my guess is a miscarried baby that they were starting to build their lives together around. I know at that age it might be considered a small thing but broken dreams can be devastating.
I love how she continues to throw flowers off the bridge for Billy Joe.

I have been haunted by this song since I first heard it maybe 45 years ago..I loved it then..and I love it now. However..now that many clergymen in the wider world have been discovered to be queer..as in gay..perhaps Billie Joe fell foul of him and decided to end his life. I think that’s the neatest explanation.

The ode is a timeless ballad and one likely to be of deep significance to bobbie gentry herself. She’s entitled to her privacy – let’s leave her be and honor her musical gift to us all. Thanks Bobbie – still lovin’ it.

When that song came out, we were all trying to solve the mystery. Yes, it was a baby. He jumped off the bridge from heartache over losing the baby, over killing the baby, (over rejection from the girlfriend never occurred to me). Bobby Gentry may not have had an answer, for her message was to relate callousness over people unconcern over a person’s death and the impersonal relationships in a family. I didn’t know about the movie, but I feel that there was no gay intention in the song. These are my opinions. Maybe Bobbie Gentry was disgusted with humanity for being so superficial that they didn’t get her purpose at all and only wanted to know why he jumped. Solve the mystery and don’t delve into humanity. Shame on us, and I am guilty as well, because I never thought of that back then.

the song was great , the original lyrics were on display somewhere at a music hall.
i personally thought that Brother Taylor was the key in the mix of the song but unless we see the rest of the lyrics, we will never know

the question on our math test for an extra 25 points in 1968 was “What did they throw…” no one got any points! no one EVER will…just as no has yet to figure out, or been told, Who Carly Simon is really singing about in “You’re so Vain”

Was there in fact a person, Billy Joe McAllister, who committed suicide by jumping off the Tallahatchie Bridge? The bridge in the video doesn’t look high enough to offer a lethal fall. And if it was in the Mississippi delta I doubt that there would be any heights sufficient to be lethal. But he could have weighted himself down and drowned.

I always assumed the song was beautiful poetic fiction. But if the details of the song are fact and Bobbie Gentry was in love with him, then I commend Gentry for not only her poetic and musical talent but also her bravery in sharing her deeply intimate story. I remember thinking that the family was unwittingly callous. Save gentry herself, the world gave not much thought to Billy Joe. Maybe that’s why he committed suicide. Gentry’s clandestine love for him was not enough to save him. I thought the pain of that on top of the loss of her lover and her empathy for him as she herself is treated with insensitivity to be the main message. The public reaction seemed to miss or at least not appreciate that aspect of the story. Then the movie comes out and mucks up the song. It’s no wonder Gentry retired from public life.

An alternative explanation might be that the pair of youngsters threw Billie Joe’s gun off the bridge, to remove the immediate weapon with which he might kill himself, as he was beginning to fall apart. The historical timing with the lunacy of sending more troops to Vietnam, naturally expands the social statement and gives it universal appreciation.

I can tell you from going to school with Bobbie in Greenwood Ms that she had little to do with the writing of the movie or it’s plot. While she made royalties off of the movie which is expected of any song writer she explained to the director that she didn’t know why Billy jumped off the bridge. Bobbie’s family lived across the road from the Tallahatchie River on Claiborne St. in Greenwood and seeing it from her front yard inspired her to write about the river.
There was a Tallahatchie Bridge a few blocks from our house in Greenwood which looked very similar to the one in the movie which we all played around in the early 50’s which goes to Money Ms. However this bridge is not the one in the film. The film bridge is in Roebuck Ms about 6 miles from Greenwood and has since been replaced with a concrete bridge. The connection to Till with Billy is preposterous for the poster who made that comment. Hope that clears up some of your questions…

The best part about the song is that we DON’T know what it is. It could be anything. I respect her for maintaining the mystery and never telling what it was that they threw off the bridge. It makes the song 10X more badass.

Well I think Bobbie Gentry is hotter than fire. I cant believe she has let wonder the two questions for so long and only she has the answer and I believe there is an answer Sure would like to see a picture of her today I just bet she is still good a looking lady. Those Mississippi girls are the best I know a few mmmm

Billy Joe McAllister jumped off the bridge because he was struggling with the fact that he was in love with a young girl, but physically attracted to a man. He had a sexual encounter with that man. He realized that he loved the girl but could not be with her in the way they both wanted him to be. See the movie “Ode to Billy Joe”.

Scot is correct. Only Hollywood can put that kind of twist on a good story and ruin it. It was at a time in Greenwood’s history when Hollywood was attacking it because of our southern ways and they haven’t let up since.

The theory about Emmett Till is about as plausible as saying that the German co-pilot recently committed suicide and mass murder because, thanks to continued teaching in German schools that successive generations of Germans -not even born during the war- must bear the guilt of the holocaust, and thus, he did the bastardly deed out of his own guilt. I enjoyed the keen observation about the dates failing to support this -not that they were necessary to destroy such a far-out idea, but it’s always nice to see the facts come into play, bringing some good ole’ logic to the big picture.

This song has been a favorite of mine ever since it first aired.
I’ve always thought there was no mystery at all as to why BJ committed suicide by jumping from the Tallahatchie Bridge – surely it was because he had a part in the murder of Emmett Till.?

The reason Gentry hasn’t been heard from is that a few years after she disappeared, her body was found in the Tallahatchie River; what force that song! Thanks for clearing up a 40-year mystery for me! How poetic and creative of her to NOT be clear about people’s most immediate theories yet instead to put the obvious in front of us -the lack of concern for the participants- and wait to see who’s first to notice. Great piece!

So, K.G.
Where you addressing your comments to Sponge Bob’s comments here and mistaking his comments as mine, or you drank enough COOL-AID that you have MINDLESS MUSH making decisions for your misguided comments come true… God help tge rest of us, listen/reading your dribble…get off your weed and think for once…your pee is running down your leg…
Clean up your act (out).

The song does say he in reference to Billie Joe. I do not think it was Emmett Till they threw off the bridge at least not her and Billie. They were lifelong friends sad and the Never had a lick of sense pass the Bisquit’s Please is a way of saying Sad but he jumped life goes on.